Blue Mound State Park Master Plan

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Snow-covered landscape

Happy (or noisy) trails to you

Tuesday, July 21, Mount Horeb High School, 5-7 pm

Help develop a sustainable trails network plan for Blue Mound State Park by sharing your thoughts at this public meeting. The State Department of Natural Resources wants input on trail conditions and improvements, especially whether to reopen the park to snowmobiles.

press release:

The public has an opportunity at an upcoming public meeting to review and comment on information that has been collected for a possible amendment to the Blue Mound State Park master plan to define trail use within the park.

The open house will run from 5 to 7 p.m. with a short presentation summarizing the data and findings at 5:15 p.m. and will be held Tuesday, July 21 at the Mount Horeb High School, 305 S. 8th St., Mount Horeb. People may also provide comments on the base maps and other materials during the open houses as well as online or by U.S. mail. The comment deadline is July 30, 2015.

The state Natural Resources Board authorized a review of the park's master plan in December 2014 following a request from state and local advocates for snowmobiling that the Department of Natural Resources re-open a snowmobile trail in the Pleasure Valley area of the park that was abandoned in the early 1980s when a neighboring property was closed to snowmobiling, making the trail through Blue Mounds a dead end.

Because the snowmobile trail has been abandoned for so long, and additional ski, snowshoe, biking and hiking trails have been developed in the Pleasure Valley area, DNR staff determined the reopening the trail would require a master plan amendment. There are other bike and cross-country ski trails located in the park that may have been constructed outside of the current master plan provisions and the amendment process would also review the placement of those trails.

The open house will provide opportunity to review and comment on updated trail maps, trail mileages, and regional trail connections. The department is also seeking comments on current trail conditions and improvements that may be made to enhance the trail experience within the state park. After this review period, the department will use this information to create a draft sustainable trails network plan that will be available for public review and comment later this year.

The background documents are available by searching the Wisconsin DNR website dnr.wi.gov for keywords "master planning" and then clicking on the link for the Blue Mound State Park plan amendment.